The first day of school is coming soon…and so is a class of roughly 25 SUPER excited Kindergarteners. If you’ve never been a first year elementary music teacher in this unique situation, it is an experience to say the least. Haha! I’m going to share with you 3 fantastic Kindergarten music activities for the first day of school that will have them saying, “AWW! IT’S OVER ALREADY?!”
Steady Beat Buddies
The first activity is Steady Beat Buddies. Steady Beat Buddies are small finger puppets that I use to teach steady beat. I use Beat Buddies as a behavior incentive as well. I let students who are following directions (sitting on their assigned seat, listening to instructions, etc.) choose their buddy first! Once they’ve chosen a beat buddy, they get to tell their beat buddy about their first day of school! (The conversations you’ll overhear are adorable!) When everyone has a beat buddy, I choose a familiar song such as Twinkle, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or any song they can easily sing and I model steady beat. We will keep the steady beat on our hands, head, knees, feet, etc. When you’re ready to clean up, we sing a lullaby and rock our Steady Beat Buddies to sleep. The students gently place their sleeping Beat Buddies back into whatever they are stored in. But be careful! If they throw the Beat Buddy it might wake it up! This is a great classroom management strategy to keep Kinders from body slamming their Beat Buddies into the storage tub.
Instrument Petting Zoo
The Instrument Petting Zoo activity is very versatile. You can skim the surface or dive deep down into this one! For the first week of school, I definitely just skim the surface but we revisit the petting zoo later in the year and dive deeper!
The idea behind the Instrument Petting Zoo is that students get to learn about many different instruments in a short amount of time. I set up different colored hula hoops around the room and place instruments inside the hula hoops. Students know they cannot touch anything inside the hula hoop. Some classes will visit one hula hoop station as a whole group then rotate to the next hula hoop all together. With other classes, we do it in small groups. With Kindergarten music activities, you always want to know your audience! The set up of the activity will depend on the class! For the complete set up, check out this Instrument Petting Zoo resource.
Mirror Movement Maestros
If your schedule is like mine, you’ll have the younger kids at the end of the day. They are exhausted, checked out mentally and ready for a nap. (I’m with them, haha!) After you’ve shown the students where to sit and gone over a few housekeeping items, Mirror Movement Maestros is the thing to do! It gets the littles up and out of their seats. It will alleviate most behavior issues and get them excited about music class!
First, I pass out scarves. If you don’t have scarves, you really should invest in them ASAP. I turn on a popular song (that’s appropriate for school, of course) and they mirror MY movements. At the end, when we are all out of breath, I ask them to wad up their scarves and hide it behind their backs. We discuss our movements using musical terms now like adagio and allegro. Then, it’s time for a student to become the maestro! The littles have been waiting ALL DAY to be in charge of something. They WANT to be leaders. I choose one student who has done an excellent job and they become the Mirror Movement Maestro. The Maestro will try his/her best to make their movements match the beat. When their turn is over, we practice proper concert etiquette by clapping then the Maestro chooses another student to lead the group. This is such a fun, EASY activity to do on the first day of Kindergarten music class. It requires zero set up, except for passing out the scarves. The kids will rave about it, too!
Pop of Positivity!
Lastly, I know you and your students will enjoy these three kindergarten music activities. If this is your first rodeo, don’t be too hard on yourself! Sing to them, dance with them and make them smile and I’ll guarantee it…you’ll be the best music teacher ever!
